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RCReports alternatives for S-corp reasonable compensation, compared

RCReports’ firm plans start at $1,500 a year for 10 reports. WageProof is $199 a report, or $24.98 on the Firm plan at 60 reports.

Generate your first report — $199See a free sample report

Last reviewed November 2026 · WageProof publishes this comparison and is not affiliated with or endorsed by RCReports.

The options at a glance

Starting price

Also listed: SafeRatio and Pay Memo.

RCReports price from rcreports.com, checked 20 Oct 2026.

All five options compared

Tool / optionStarting price~25-report costMethodologyApproachesAudit support
WageProofOur product$199 / report$999/yrPublished (BLS OEWS)All three; Income at every pro tierIncluded with every report, for 4 years after finalizing
RCReports$499 / report$2,500/yrProprietary (sources confidential)All three (see RCReports pricing)Included in all annual plans
Paychex payrollNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedAsk PaychexAsk Paychex
BLS OEWS manual lookup (DIY)Free dataStaff timePublic (BLS)Cost / Market onlyNone
Industry surveys (DIY)Free–$$VariesPublished, narrow scopeCost / Market (you apply it)None

RCReports prices from rcreports.com, checked 20 Oct 2026.

A fully-cited, defensible PDF for $199, with no annual commitment

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Costs and best fit for each tool

WageProofOur product

Best for firms running 5+ reports a year, and for owners who don’t want to pay $499 for a one-off.

From$199a report

  • $24.98 a report

    on the Firm plan at 60 reports

  • Every wage traced

    each BLS wage figure, to its SOC code and percentile

  • 4 years of audit support

    included with every report, after finalizing

Run your first report — $199

or see a free sample report

When our previous provider changed their pricing, it just got too expensive, so we looked at several options. We settled on WageProof because it was the closest to the product we’d been presenting to our clients, and the transition was truly painless. It’s white-labeled with our brand, just as professional, and easy for our clients to use. Josh was responsive every step of the way. It’s been a good experience all around.
Beth Elliott, Account Coordinator, Summit Advisors

RCReports

Best for firms that want an established platform, its adjacent tools or CPE/CE courses.

From$499a report

Pros

  • Audit & litigation support included in all annual plans
  • Entity Planning, Wage Lookup, Multiple Client Report Wizard, CYA Log
  • CPE/CE training through RCReports’ courses

Cons

  • ~$100/report at 25 reports a year vs ~$40 on WageProof
  • Underlying data sources and calculations are confidential (per RCReports); not verifiable line-by-line the way BLS data is
  • The smallest plan is 10 reports for $1,500 a year, so low-volume firms pay for reports they may not use
Visit rcreports.com

Paychex payroll

Best if you already run payroll with Paychex: ask what your plan includes first.

PriceNot published

Pros

  • If you already run payroll through Paychex, you can ask your Paychex contact what reasonable compensation support your plan includes
  • Tied to a major payroll vendor with an established compliance posture

Cons

  • No reasonable compensation report, methodology or sample is described on paychex.com, so there is nothing to compare before you ask

Also listed. SafeRatio: first report free; firm pricing not published. Pay Memo: general pay-documentation memos; Free, a $500 30-day pass, or $2,500 a year.

Already weighing WageProof against RCReports?

WageProof vs RCReports, feature by featureRCReports’ sample client, run through WageProof

Building it yourself from free BLS data

DIY: BLS OEWS lookup + spreadsheet

Best for hands-on owners doing a one-off, who will build their own documentation.

Staff time

Pros

  • Free data — the same federal data WageProof uses
  • Full control over methodology and data choices
  • Educational — forces you to understand the calculation

Cons

  • Costs the hourly rate of whoever does the research: SOC search, MSA lookup, percentile selection, ECI inflation adjustment, fallback for missing geographies
  • No PDF report — you produce the documentation yourself
  • High error risk — one bad SOC match can produce a wildly off number
  • No version control or audit trail
  • Doesn’t include the standard Reasonable Compensation Job Aid for IRS Valuation Professionals framing, methodology narrative, or a salary resolution template

Industry compensation surveys

Best as a supplement to a BLS-based analysis.

Free–$$

Pros

  • Industry-specific compensation data often more granular than BLS by sub-specialty
  • Free or cheap at the personal-report level
  • Useful supplement to BLS data — multiple sources strengthen a Market Approach

Cons

  • Methodology and sample sizes are vendor-controlled and not always published
  • Wage figures only: you build the Market or Cost Approach analysis yourself
  • No audit-ready report deliverable; you build the documentation yourself
  • Geography sometimes coarser than BLS MSA-level data
  • In one Tax Court case (Glass Blocks Unlimited, T.C. Memo. 2013-180), the court declined to accept figures from salary-reporting websites as reliable

Rather not build it yourself? WageProof uses the same BLS data, for $199.See a free sample report

Pick by how many reports you run a year

1–2 a year

WageProof Pay Per Report $199

A defensible PDF, no annual plan.

3–10 a year

WageProof Starter $49.90 a report at 10

$499 a year for 10 reports.

10–30 a year

WageProof Professional about $40 a report at 25

$999 a year, 30 reports included.

30+ a year

WageProof Firm $24.98 a report at 60

$1,499 a year; about $30 a report at 50 clients.

On Paychex payroll

Ask Paychex first

If it is not a documented report, use WageProof or RCReports.

Compare with RCReports at each volume
1 report a year, technically inclined owner
DIY (BLS OEWS + spreadsheet) uses free data but costs the hours of whoever does it. WageProof is $199 per report.
1–2 reports a year, S-corp owner who wants done-for-them
WageProof Pay Per Report: a defensible PDF for $199, no annual plan.
3–10 reports a year (small firm)
WageProof Starter ($499/year) is $49.90/report for 10 reports. RCReports Essentials ($1,500/year for 10 reports) works out to $150/report.
10–30 reports a year (mid-sized firm)
WageProof Professional ($999/year — ~$40/report across 25 clients, 30 reports included) vs RCReports Premium ($2,500/year, ~$100/report at 25 reports). Decide based on whether RCReports’ adjacent tools justify the price difference.
30+ reports a year (firm with reasonable comp as a recurring service)
WageProof Firm ($1,499/year) is about $30/report at 50 reports, or $24.98/report at its full 60 reports. The comparable RCReports plan is Professional (50 reports, $4,000/year, $80/report); above 50 reports RCReports lists Enterprise, with no published price.
Already on Paychex payroll
Ask Paychex what reasonable compensation support your plan includes and what you would receive in writing. If that is not a documented report, use WageProof or RCReports for the report itself.

RCReports prices from rcreports.com, checked 20 Oct 2026.

Generate your first report — $199

Questions

Five software products: WageProof (newer; publishes its methodology and uses BLS wage data; $199 per report, or $24.98 per report on the Firm plan at 60 reports), RCReports itself (the established platform), Paychex payroll if you already use it (ask Paychex what reasonable compensation support your plan includes), SafeRatio (first report free; firm pricing not published), and Pay Memo (general pay-documentation memos; Free, a $500 30-day pass, or $2,500 a year). Plus two non-tool options: DIY BLS OEWS lookup with a spreadsheet, and industry compensation surveys (Robert Half, Salary.com, Payscale) used as Market Approach supplements.

Five criteria: (1) methodology transparency — can you show an IRS examiner where the wage data came from, (2) coverage of all three IRS-recognized approaches (Cost, Market, Income), (3) per-report cost at your actual report volume, (4) professional workflow features such as client management, white-label, year-over-year duplication, and (5) audit support posture — standard customer support or paid premium services.

The BLS data is free, but a manual lookup isn’t: it costs the hourly rate of whoever does the research and builds the documentation. Industry surveys are partially free. Neither produces an audit-ready PDF the way a software tool does. SafeRatio’s pricing page says its first report is free: a 24-page PDF using BLS OEWS data. WageProof produces a fully cited PDF for $199 per report, or $24.98 per report on the Firm plan at 60 reports.

We know of no tool that imports client data directly from another vendor, so client name, business type, hours, geography, and proficiency level are inputs you re-enter. It is data you have already collected.

Possibly. Different tools use different wage data sources, geographic granularity, and proficiency-to-percentile mappings. Different tools can produce different numbers, all of which can be defensible if the methodology is documented and the data source is credible. Running one client through both is the cleanest comparison.

Yes. Reports are year-specific deliverables, so a prior year’s PDF still documents that year and you do not need to re-run it. Download your PDFs before you cancel: RCReports says that on your plan’s expiration date you lose access to all reports run in your account. Going forward, generate in whichever tool you have chosen.

Yes. Annual plans run a year at a time, and both WageProof’s and RCReports’ renew automatically unless you cancel before the renewal date, so check that date before you switch. Trying the new tool on one client first is the simplest way to decide.

Public wage data, for less than half an RCReports single report

Run one client through both and compare the PDFs.

Generate your first report — $199See a free sample report

See full pricing · Read the full WageProof vs RCReports comparison →

WageProof is not affiliated with or endorsed by RCReports. RCReports is a trademark of its owner. Ocean Tax Advisors is a fictional firm used for WageProof’s samples.